Dr. Victor Parsonnet at NJPAC in 2008. He served on the board of the performing arts center in Newark as well as the New Jersey Symphony. Photo by Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger.
In the December 27, 2024, NJ.com (New Jersey), Amy Kuperinsky writes, “Dr. Victor Parsonnet, a cardiac surgeon who performed New Jersey’s first successful heart and kidney transplant and was chairman of the New Jersey Symphony, has died. Parsonnet was 100 when he died peacefully Dec. 23, his family told the symphony…. Parsonnet joined the board of the New Jersey Symphony in 1986 and became chairman in 1991. He served in that role until 2007. ‘We have a love affair, me and musicians,’ he told The Star-Ledger in 2008, when he became board chair emeritus…. The alum of [Newark’s] Maple Avenue School and Weequahic High School studied at Cornell University, served in the Navy and earned his medical degree at New York University…. His father, Eugene Parsonnet, who played the violin, was a member of the symphony board of trustees, and Rose, his mother, was a pianist…. ‘Our father will be greatly missed, but whenever we see the New Jersey Symphony musicians perform or listen to classical music, he will be with us,’ Parsonnet’s son, Dr. Jeffrey Parsonnet, said … ‘Victor was so special to the Symphony, and it was his ability to unite and bond that made him an effective board chair,’ violinist and concertmaster Eric Wyrick said.”
